Copy holders by Dainoff Designs, Inc. were used in the international "MEPS" study

Scientific data

The Atlas Ergonomic Book & Copy Holder was part of the
United States portion of an international ergonomic study, the "MEPS" study. As
part of this study, data entry workers who worked at standardized, uniform desks were
studied in terms of their posture, as well as being tested for painful local regions
(trigger points) in the back and upper shoulders. This is the "pre-test" --
before any ergonomic changes were made.

At the end of 30 days, and again after one
year, these measurements were repeated; postures were assessed and trigger points
evaluated. The results indicated that, after the intervention, the participants' head
posture was more erect, and they suffered from many fewer trigger points.

The average neck angles decreased from 20
degrees at pretest to 13 degrees after 30 days, and 12 degrees after one year. The total
number of trigger points among the participants decreased from 128 at pretest to 34 after
30 days, and 17 one year after the ergonomic changes. For both of these measures, these
decreases were statistically significant.

It should be stressed that the copy holder was only part of
the overall changes that were made to these volunteers' workstations. Nevertheless, it is
reasonable to conclude that use of the document holder played an important role in the
changes cited above.